


no death

by okayantigone



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Trauma Recovery, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 10:33:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11355672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: in the dream, riko is alive. in the dream, they’re back in the Nest, in their room. Riko is leaning his hip on the desk, his right hand clasped loosely around his left wrist.





	no death

in the dream, riko is alive. in the dream, they’re back in the Nest, in their room. Riko is leaning his hip on the desk, his right hand clasped loosely around his left wrist. 

“hello kevin.” 

 

“you’re dead.” kevin says, without preamble. 

riko makes his hand in the shape of a gun and taps his forehead, where a wound blossoms, terrible and crimson. “Right you are, Kevin.” 

he turns his back to Kevin, and Kevin studies the blown out back of his skull, dumbly recognizing that he’s borrowing from aaron’s medical textbook, to name all the parts that shouldn’t be on display. 

“We should go now,” Riko says. “Don’t be distracted. We have to go.” 

Kevin shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere, Riko. You’re dead.” 

“Don’t be silly Kevin. That doesn’t matter now. We’re going to be late, let’s go.” He reaches to grab Kevin by the hand, and Kevin recoils. 

“Go where,” he demands again, “Riko, where are we going?” 

 

Somehow, he’s being tugged along after Riko, down the darkened halls. 

“The winter banquet, Kevin. Don’t tell me you forgot! Tonight’s the night, Kevin. We’re announcing that we signed to play for the US Court. Will you hurry up already?” 

And suddenly Kevin finds himself thrust forward on the podium set up in the middle of the court at Castle Evermore, looking down at a crowd of flashing cameras. 

“Well? What’s the big announcement, Kevin Day?” Kathy asks. She’s sitting on the pastel sofa from her studio with a mug of coffee, like she’s hosting her morning show there and now. 

Riko is smiling a slow placating smile for the audience. 

He approaches the microphone, and his mouth is dry. 

 

“The news is,” he says. Riko nods at him. “The news is - Riko is dead.” 

The audience errupts in boos. 

“We all know that,” Kathy says impatiently. “Tell us the real news!” 

“What does she mean, they already know that?” 

“Everyone knows I’m dead, Kevin. Don’t you remember? The Master told them. They don’t want to know about that! Tell them about Court!” 

“But Riko - how will we play if you’re dead?” 

Rik outright laughs. “Don’t be silly, Kevin! We’ll play like we always do, yeah? You, and me. On the US Court together. This is what you’ve always wanted. Death doesn’t matter.” 

Kevin nods. “Right.” 

“Say it, Kevin. Say it, and it becomes true. No death.” 

“No death,” Kevin repeats dutifully. 

“Me and Riko,” he says in the microphone, “Will play for the US Court, starting this year.” 

“But Kevin,” Kathy says from her sofa. “How will you play, when your hand is broken?” 

Riko, who is dead, turns around to face Kevin. His smile turns menacing. “Yeah, Kevin,” he says, grinning with more teeth than Kevin remembers him having in life. “How will you play when your hand is broken?” 

Kevin looks down at his hand. It’s jumbled mess of flesh and bone sticking out from it, his fingers crooked and misshapen. 

Kevin sits up in bed, stifling his bubbling scream with a pillow, and breathing into it until his heart slides down his throat and in its rightful place. 

He remembers that night. The night he and Riko announced that they’d been signed by the US Court. Riko had been at an all time high the whole week. His smile had shown too many teeth, and it had stayed put regardless of how hard Tetsuji tried to knock it away. Kevin had found himself returning it. “Court, Kevin. This is it.” Riko had said. He was knotting his tie, looping the crimson silk betweeh his graceful fingers. 

“Do you want to say it?” 

“What?” Kevin looked at the sharo lines of Riko’s back, making eye contact with him in the mirror. 

“To the reporters. Do you want to say it?” 

“No. Riko - no. This is - you say it.” 

Riko’s fierce smile in the moment had been everything. 

Two bottles of vodka, one of them already empty, stood between them on the floor of the room. Riko knew which of the upperclassmen to order ask to procure alcohol for them to celebrate. 

He took a deep swig from the bottle, his lips wrapping around the glass. 

“The Master will kill us if he finds out we’ve been boozing up,” Kevin said.

“He won’t. Not tonight.” 

His hands were shaking when he smoothed the lapels of his suit. 

Kevin came up behind him. Took hold of them. “Court.” he said, for the first time speaking the words and believing them too. “Say it and it becomes true.” 

He didn’t even know he was smiling until he looked in the mirror at their reflections. 

He couldn’t remember the last time Riko’s smile had been this human. 

“Are you ready?” 

Kevin had looked down at his own hands. They weren’t shaking. Riko had clasped his left wrist in his right hand. They were still now too. 

“Yes.” 

He remembers stepping out on that platform, next to Riko, after Tetsuji had spoken about a “special announcement”. He remembers hearing his pulse roar in his ears. 

He remembers, the applause - polite and contained from the Ravens, but boisterous and loud from the other attendees - their peers, and their fiercest competitors. Riko’s teeth had returned behind his carefully maintained public smile. 

He let the pillow slide off the bed, and rested his hands in his lap. Still. Unshaking. 

No death. The scars on his left hand were still there. Would always be there. No death. 

Say it and it becomes real. 

he leans back on the pillows. Closes his eyes. Rubs his eyes with the pals of his unshaking hands. A smile that’s too much teeth to ever be shown to the public cuts its way across his face, triumphantly. “Alive,” Kevin Day whispers to himself. He is alive. And then, because it’s still a dream, he lets himself say it out loud, alone to the darkness of the room, “The foxes.”


End file.
